Roy
by Simon920
Summary: Reactions to Roy living at the Manor. Sequel to My Word and Breakfast. This story involves a SLASH relationship between Roy Harper and Dick Grayson. Number 3 in the My Word series. If you don't like these things then move along, folks, nothing to see here


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**Roy **

Bruce had actually spent the entire day at the office overseeing that new merger, all the while pretending he was anxious to make his tee off, which he ended up missing. It had taken seven hours to hammer out the fine points but they'd done it and now he was looking forward to an hour of down time in the quiet of his study, maybe a glass of that good Chablis as a rewardf and some Mozart playing in the background.

He walked into the wood paneled room, the fire warm, waiting for him and casting the only light other than a small antique Tiffany desk lamp; the promised wine glass sitting on a tray in the middle of the desk. He was just about to sink into the soft leather chair when his instincts warned him there was someone else in the room.

There, sitting comfortably back on the chesterfield sofa across from his grandfather's desk. "I hope I'm not disturbing you, Roy. Were you waiting for Dick?" You almost couldn't hear the sarcasm.

"Dick is working late on a science lab at school. He called and said he'd be back in an hour or so. No, I was waiting for you."

"Yes?" Bruce took his seat as planned, sat back and sipped the wine. It was very good.

"I know you don't like me and I know you don't think I'm good enough for Dick—and you're probably right, but if you do anything to get rid of me you'll hurt Dick."

Bruce was looking at him as though he was an employee making his case about why Mr. Wayne shouldn't fire him and was flat-out not in the mood for this. "Go on."

"Just that. Dick and I love each other. I know you don't believe me, and you think it'll blow over in a few weeks or a couple of months, but you're wrong. We're been together for almost a year now, we're going to stay together and we both know that."

Of course they did. They were seventeen years old and they knew that this would last forever.

"We started out when we were thirteen as friends, good friends—we still are best friends but about a year ago..." He trailed off, unsure how far he should go, how much he should tell Bruce since he'd probably use it against them someday.

Oh, for God's sake, Bruce was just not in the mood for teenaged angst. "About a year ago you both discovered that your feelings had somehow changed, deepened and you saw each other in a new light…is that about what you were going to say?" Roy just glared at him. "Then one night—it was one night, wasn't it? —You found one another and learned the ecstasy two people can share. Since that night your feelings have only grown deeper and now it's almost as if you were one person in two bodies. Is that about what happened, Roy? Yes, I thought as much." He sipped his very good wine again. "Have I left anything out? Oh—naturally, you were afraid to share what you've found, because talking about it with other people would cheapen it, make it less special and you wanted to keep it private. And, of course, you've completely kicked the heroin and it will never tempt you or be a problem again." He turned to the fire as a log fell, sending up a shower of sparks. "That about cover it?" The only thing missing was a windblown portrait of the two of them; Heathcliff and Mr. Darcy embracing on the moors.

For once, Roy kept his temper under control. "Dick always defends you, did you know that? Even when you treat him like shit, he always makes excuses for you."

"Yes, well, as I assume he does the same for you, Roy." He drained the glass. "I think we probably understand one another. You know how I feel and I know what you and Dick believe about your staying together. I suggest we simply retire to our respective corners and see who's right eventually, shall we? It's easier on the digestion."

They both heard Dick's motorcycle coming up the drive and pulling around to the garage as the sound faded. Roy stood up, his face lit by the fire more than anything else. "You're wrong, Bruce. About us—you're wrong and you'll see in five or ten years when we're still together. You'll see." Not waiting for a reply, he left to greet Dick.

Bruce stayed in the study for a while; knowing Alfred would call him when dinner was ready. Clearly the boys had been talking and equally obviously they were intent on this course for now. Alfred likely was right; this was probably just a teenaged romance that would burn itself out, as they tended to do but in the interim living here would be a challenge for all of them and Bruce thought he may well have made a mistake in offering the kids the use of his house. Well, maybe he could do something about that. He heard the boy's voices coming down the hall—Roy's a little strident and Dick reassuring as they headed upstairs and as he went to intercept them. "Dick, Roy—join me for a minute, if you don't mind." The two young men came into the study as Bruce flicked on some more lights, both the kids curious with Dick looking ready to gird for battle to protect Roy. "I've been giving this some thought and, if you agree, I think you'll be more comfortable and have more privacy if you shifted to the apartment over the garage." The boys exchanged a look—this was better than Christmas, maybe. "What do you say?"

Dick knew the apartment and it wasn't a big place, one bedroom, a bath, a decent sized common room with the basics of a small kitchen in a corner. It was also currently empty as Alfred did all the chauffeuring and had his own suite in the south wing.

"You're serious? You'll let us use it, really?" Dick couldn't hide the smile—a place where he and Roy could be alone and Bruce was supplying it to them? Hell, yes. Sure, he knew Bruce never did anything without having an agenda, but they could work with this—forewarned, forearmed and all of that, right? And it would have the added bonus of them not having to really deal with Ollie too much. It sounded like a deal.

Bruce nodded. "So if you agree, I'll call Peter tomorrow and have him make sure everything up there is working—plumbing, heat, all of that. All right?"

"God, yeah, thank you! This is great—thanks, Bruce."

He nodded. "And if Roy is going to stay here, I think we need to enroll him in one of the local schools—obviously it's too far for him to keep going back and forth between here and Star City. The Academy with Dick or the public school—Roy?"

"Er, umm—the public school's cheaper, isn't it? I guess that'll be fine." Plus he and Dick wouldn't have to deal with gay rumors so much if they were at different schools.

Bruce looked at Roy as if he were speaking a foreign language to worry about money for education, but whichever the child preferred was fine, it wasn't like he'd be there long, after all. "I've no objection to that and I thought we'd cover Speedy being on the East Coast so much by having Robin explaining something about him being needed more with the Titans, if anyone asks—sound plausible? Good. I assume you understand if I ask you to make the announcement to Ollie? I think we can agree you owe him that much at least."

"Yeah, sure." God, he'd been avoiding this for months but if it would let him and Dick be together—_live_ together—hell, he'd call the Queen of England if he had to.

"Good. I'll see you both for dinner then." Bruce turned back to the fire for a few minutes alone before round two as the boys both moved to go upstairs.

"Um, Bruce?" Roy had stopped with Dick looking a question at him. Bruce turned back to face them. "Thanks. And I'd really like to pay my way, if it's all right with you. I mean for food and heat and stuff. Okay?"

Bruce hadn't expected this and it was to the boy's credit. Most people dealing with him assumed that since he was wealthy he'd pay all the bills and pick up every tab. He nodded once. "Fair enough. I'll let you know what a reasonable price will be and we can discuss it later in the week." Obviously he'd cut the kid a good bit of slack, but still—good for him.

* * *

"Jesus, did you believe that? He's actually giving us a place of our own? Awesome!" Roy swung Dick around by his waist then pulled him in for a long couple of kisses that left them sprawled in a heap on the old couch in the center of the room. The idea of christening the place crossed both their minds, but then decided to keep exploring their new space—for now, at least. There was always later.

They were up in the apartment after dinner, looking around and checking it out, seeing what it needed. Roy was excited and Dick didn't want to pop his bubble, but he knew Bruce well enough to know that this wasn't quite the generous gesture it looked like on the surface. He knew exactly what Bruce was doing and it had infuriated him when the shoe dropped in his brain; Bruce was giving them just enough rope to hang themselves with and Dick was now going to do everything he could think of to make sure that didn't happen.

"Dick—look at this." Roy was up again and standing on the small balcony overlooking the side lawn. "We can get a couple of chairs—no, a lounger or a sofa or something and…" He was off and running in a romantic vision of candlelight and wine on the terrace ending with lovemaking under the stars and while Dick admitted it sounded pretty good, well, Bruce would have thought of that, too. There were security cameras installed to watch Bruce's car collection and, probably, to watch the drivers as well. Dick was instantly sure; the place was bugged. That was why Bruce has suggested the apartment; he could flick a switch and keep as close an eye as he wanted.

Of course. And Bruce also knew Dick would figure it out and make the obvious connection—Bruce was watching, Bruce held the trump card and he always would. They would just be living there, under the illusion of privacy, but also only under Bruce's conditions.

He decided instantly, "I don't think we should move in here." Dick was standing next to Roy on the small balcony, listening to him go on about how perfect it would be, just the two of them with no one watching or telling them what to do.

"I think we should get a king-sized bed so we can both spread out; do you think it would fit against that wall over there or…what?"

"I don't think it's a good idea for us to move in up here. Look, Speedy, we're not dealing with Bruce here, we're dealing with the Bat and he's not as cool with this as he's making out; trust me on this one."

The light bulb went of over Roy's head, proof he probably had some suspicions of his own. "He has surveillance in here." It was a crestfallen statement of fact and Dick nodded. "Shit. So what do you want to do?"

Good question. "For now, let's stay in my room; it's far enough away from Bruce and Alfred that we'll be okay." As long as he disabled the intercom that is; Dick knew about Bruce and Alfred using it to listen in on him ever since he'd been assigned his room back when he was eight years old and now with Bruce's attempt to put them in the bugged apartment, he had no doubt Bruce would be watching if he could. Sure, he'd shorted out the circuit annually since he'd figured out how to do it when he was about ten, but he knew it was a stop gap and was fixed in days. Lately, he'd taken some pleasure in making obvious noise every night to try to embarrass Bruce, in fact. There was, of course, no reason for Roy to know that, wouldn't want him to feel inhibited, now. "One day at a time, I guess."

The disappointment was plain on his face but Roy nodded. "Yeah, I guess." The thought of the apartment had been so perfect but hell, as long as they were still together…

* * *

"Bruce? I hear Speedy is staying at your place—good of you to put him up, but I think it's time he stopped freeloading off you and got his butt back here. 'You mind putting him on a plane for me?"

Another week and a half had gone by and Bruce was in his Wayne Enterprises office, between meetings. Green Arrow had gotten him on his private cell. "The boys have been having some fun together at the house so you should really talk to Roy about that—I'm pretty sure he'd like to stay out here for a while yet."

"Why, are they working on a Titan's case or something? Well, whenever they're done, send him home."

There was a pause while Oliver could have sworn Wayne was stifling a laugh. "I think it would be best if you talked to Roy directly, Queen. You have the number, don't you? Try after about four, he'll probably be there by then. My two o'clock is here; call your boy, Ollie."

What the hell? The Bat never could do anything easy if it was possible to complicate things. Just put the kid on a damn plane, no big deal. Fine, whatever, if games were to be played, play he would. Redialing, he got Roy on his cell. Luckily the boy was in study hall and not math and so had a couple of minutes to talk. When he saw who was on the other end he went around the corner and found some privacy, tempting as it was to just not answer. Hell, he had to get it over sooner or later, right? "You planning on coming back?"

"Ollie? Hey, hi. Look I was going to call you, but…"

"You got busy and you forgot. Yeah, I know. SSDD, kid. Get your butt on a plane and head west. I have a couple of things you may want a part of in the next couple of days."

"Um, I'm kinda tied up here and I was going to call you about it later."

"Yeah? What's up?"

"I'm kind of staying with Dick."

"I heard—but you've got to be wearing out your welcome by now, so get yourself back here. I just talked to Wayne and he said you're in the middle of something with Bat junior, but as soon as you're done, I want you back covering my back. Dinah is busy working with Barbara and I could use some back up…"

He didn't mean to blurt it out, but "I'm not coming back I mean…" Roy stopped. "I mean, um, Dick and I are kind of staying together and…"

"Yeah, I heard, but you don't live there and you know about fish and guests after three days and you're overdue so…"

"No, we're not just staying together—we are together. We're living together and Bruce said I could stay. I'm registered in school here and, um, I'm, I'm sort of staying here."

"You're staying? Like you mean…"

"I mean like me and Dick are living together."

"…You mean like friends?"

"Well, yeah, that too, but I mean we're like living together. You know—_living_ together."

"You mean like fuck buddies? Are you shitting me? _Robin?_" The degree of disbelief in GA's voice was impressive before he started laughing. "You two are fags? Jesus, no wonder the Bat was busting a gut on the phone."

"I mean like lovers, Ollie—Christ; I know you're not going to buy this, but we love each other. Give us some damn credit why don't you?"

There was a silence while Green Arrow digested the information and tried to control himself. After what seemed like several long minutes he almost succeeded. "This is the Bat's doing, isn't it? I'll fucking kill that son of a…"

"C'mon, he had nothing to do with it; he didn't even know until about two weeks ago and he's okay with me staying here so me and Dick can be together." Okay, maybe that was stretching it a little, but what the hell.

"I'll frigging bet he is."

"So if you could box up my stuff and send it to the Manor that would be great."

"You're serious?" Roy didn't bother answering that one. "You two planning a wedding I should know about? Who gets to play groom?"

"Can it. Just send me my clothes, okay?" Roy was getting tired of this. Sure, he knew it was kinda a surprise, but it's not like he'd just announced he'd killed someone. Gay—well, bi—no big deal. Deal with it.

"Sure. Whatever." The connection was cut; Ollie had hung up on him. Well, that had gone about as well as expected. Given time, a few weeks, a month or two, three millennium, Ollie would come around. He'd always liked Dick—the perfect side kick ad all that shit, held him up as a role model—well, he had until about three minutes ago, anyway. Besides, it could be worse; he could have hooked up with Catwoman, for God's sake. It wasn't like she'd never hit on him.

* * *

A month later Ollie did send a couple of boxes of clothing and, surprisingly, day-to-day routine in the Manor adjusted quickly and without a great deal of upset to the household, in large part thanks to Alfred and the boys keeping largely to themselves other than for meals and patrols.

The odd thing Dick seemed to notice about Bruce was that, though he did his best to hide it, once in a while Dick would catch these looks and could swear Bruce was jealous of him and Roy. To be fair, they did make a real effort not to be obnoxious or anything; they hardly ever so much as held hands unless they were alone and he didn't think they'd ever knowingly kissed in front of Bruce or Alfred. Okay, what they did upstairs was another story—usually several times a night, but at meals or hanging around after school or on the weekend, no one would have taken them for anything other than just good friends.

Speedy was also getting into the habit of patrolling with Batman and Robin occasionally. It was difficult because the Batmobile was a two-seater, but Robin would use his motorcycle and it worked all right, even gave them all added flexibility with three instead of two in the mix. They were discovering how useful Speedy could be and—sure, Robin knew how good he was because of the Titans, but even Batman was impressed when he took down Joker with a special bolo-arrow. Roy was even toning down his snark they were all at the Manor and that was a seriously good thing because Alfred would have cut him dead with a word and Bruce would have simply killed him.

Usually after school the two of them would go through their own workouts and practices down in the cave gym while Bruce was till at the office. They'd set up a series of moving targets for Roy and the boys would encourage one another, tease and try to outdo each other. Dick usually won that round and he was starting to wonder if Speedy was holding back, but dismissed the idea—nah, Roy wouldn't let him win; he was as competitive as Dick was. They'd shower or soak non-platonically in the Jacuzzi for a while and by then it would be time to head upstairs to eat. They'd relax after dinner, maybe watching a movie, maybe put on some music or work on their computers. Dick would do his homework and egg Roy to do his, helping if asked and by the time they were both done it would be time to patrol. Bruce was adjusting pretty well to having Roy along on patrol at least half of the time but then grounded Roy when his first set of grades were mailed to the house. It took him two months to pull them up enough to go out again, bitching the whole time before Dick clued him in to put a lid on it or he'd be on Medicare before he hit the streets again.

Finally, during the grounding, around three or four in the morning, Robin would be back from patrol, Roy would be waiting and the rest of the night would begin. And when they were alone up in their room, well, then things were pretty much perfect. Then just a look or a smile, a casual hand on a cheek was enough to get them going and—teenaged hormones be damned—they both really loved making love with one another and searched daily for new variations to try.

Understandably, Alfred let them both sleep in on weekends.

But sometimes Dick still saw that look on Bruce's face and it bothered him. Finally, after the boys had been together at the Manor for four or five months, he took a chance while Roy was over at the Tower covering monitor duty and Bruce was paying bills in the library.

"Bruce? Can I talk to you?"

He didn't look up from the checkbook. "Sure, what's on your mind?"

"Are you really okay with me and Roy?"

He still didn't look up, perusing the phone bill. "I'm fine. I told you that."

"So how come you never talk to me unless it's about business? I mean it's like I'm an employee you only notice when you have something specific to discuss." Bruce looked at the large checkbook while he signed his name again.

"Excuse me?"

"It's like you don't want to disturb me and Roy or something. I don't know—it seems like you're afraid you'll walk in on us and, you know…be embarrassed. I mean, you had the intercom set up to listen in 'til I killed it."

"Dick…"

"Is it because we're both guys? If it were Donna staying here instead of Roy, would you feel the same way?"

"Of course…"

"Because I know this sounds weird, but neither of us is really gay. I know that sounds stupid, but we really just like each other—love each other—as people and the gender thing really doesn't have much to do with it."

Bruce finally gave Dick his full attention. "Dick, come on now. For two young men who you say are really straight, you've both made a remarkable adjustment." He held up his hand to stop whatever Dick was going to say. "Just a minute. First of all, I have no problems with gay or bi or any of that and I don't even have any major objections with you setting up housekeeping here in the Manor; if I did you two wouldn't be here."

"So what _is_ the problem?"

Bruce took a breath, knowing Dick wouldn't take this well. "You know as well as I do; the problem is Roy. I think you can do better—let me finish, please. I know how you two feel about each other, it's not like I could miss it. The fact is that he's a recovered addict and you know as well as I do what the odds are that he'll stay clean." Dick started to protest. "Excuse me, I'm not finished talking. You also have to know that your relationship isn't an equal one; you're obviously dominant and he clearly looks to you to tell him what to do, to take the lead. You're frankly quite a bit more intelligent than he is, you're more dedicated, better trained and significantly more mature in your outlook and attitude. He's a loose cannon and can't be trusted not to fly off the handle—how many times has this been a problem for the Titans?"

"Ah, c'mon, that's incredibly unfair to both me and Roy, Bruce. He's a lot smarter than you think and he kicked heroin cold turkey—why the hell can't you give him credit for that?" Dick paced back and forth in front of the desk, angry and outraged for his lover, determined both to keep his temper and to defend him and make Bruce see him as he did—the gentleness, the compassion, the humor. "And we're happy when we're together—I know that doesn't mean anything to you, but it's huge, Bruce. He's…" Here Dick faltered. Roy was the light to his occasional darkness; the pain he kept suppressed because he didn't want to bother other people with it. Roy made his parent's deaths hurt less and he did the same thing for Roy. He found his voice again, "I know you and Alfred think this will fade out on it's own—maybe it will—but right now it's good and it's working."

Bruce was watching him as he tried to explain it. Fine. Clearly Dick wouldn't be moved on this, at least not now. He took a moment then, "All right fine, maybe I've underestimated him and I'll reevaluate my opinion over the next week or so. In the meantime I would appreciate if you could do what you can to see his passes History."

Relieved, thinking he may have made some headway—unlikely as that might be with the Bat, Dick nodded but he knew this wasn't over by a long shot. "Sure, no problem And Bruce? Don't reconnect the intercom up to my room again, okay? It really pisses me off." He stopped just as he was about to leave the room. "I mean, it's almost like you're jealous, Bruce. You know all those rumors since I moved in here like almost ten years ago? Sometimes I almost think you'd like to join us."

Bruce didn't respond, just looked at the now empty doorway. Dick may have just been taking a shot in the dark, but Bruce wasn' about to let him know how right he was.

6/14/06

11


End file.
